ABSTRACT
The stimulus for the development of American anthropology was the presence, in all their variety, of the American Indians, and the new discipline fixed as its object of study their linguistic, physical, cultural and historical-archaeological characteristics. Anthropologists took up these four fields, but without ever being able to move beyond juxtaposing them as separate areas of knowledge. So today one may be an archaeologist, an expert on lemurs or an ethnologist, but rarely two or all three at once. Nevertheless, a student in the USA is often required to gain a broad-based knowledge of the discipline, so that he may, if he wishes, keep abreast of progress in areas other than his own.
